Help! I Think I’m Being Harassed by Demons. How Do I Make it Stop For Good?

‘Demon harassment’, sometimes called ‘demon-oppression’ or ‘demonization’ is the subject of this chapter. What I’m referring to is when a demon does not possess a person, but it troubles them in some way, whether revealing itself visually and refusing to leave, or by speaking to the person and refusing to be quiet, or by harassing them through inserting thoughts into their mind, or by afflicting them with physical or mental illness.

I get asked this question routinely: “I am a Christian and I don’t believe I can be demon-possessed, but I believe I’m being harassed by demons. We’ve tried everything but we can’t get the harassment to stop. How do I make the harassment stop for good?” Sometimes it will be a parent with a child who they think is either harassed by demons or mentally ill, and they aren’t sure which it is that the child is suffering from.

I’ve asked this question many times myself, which is what lead to me doing a thorough study on it. And so have many people that I know and come in contact with. One of the most common questions after a loved one has symptoms of a psychotic break and gets diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is “Are the health professionals right that this is mental illness? It looks so much like demon oppression – or even demon possession. Could they be wrong in their diagnosis and I should take my kid to a pastor instead? Is the psychiatrist trying to medicate what is really a spiritual problem?”

There is no question that demons are involved in what goes on in this world. They are a constant part of life in this world. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible speaks of their involvement and they don’t stop being involved until Jesus comes back to earth a second time. Until then Satan is the acting god of this world. Though defeated through the cross he is still temporarily on the earth’s throne until the war between Christ and Satan finally ends.

Demons make up earth’s economy just as people do. They are behind the scenes tempting nations to go to war. They appear in false visions and manifestations to people as gods and people take these beliefs and form false religions. They want our worship, to take our hearts away from the true God. Satan tempted Peter while he was in the very presence of Jesus. Jesus said “get thee behind me Satan” (Matthew 16:23) showing that Satan plays an active role even in believer’s lives to tempt them and try to hinder God’s work. None of us live one day without the presence and temptations of demons. This is the sober reality.

Any theological belief that doesn’t incorporate the very real presence of demons into the equation isn’t Biblically accurate. Often Satan is much more involved in people’s lives than they’d like to admit. When we come under the power of a besetting sin, it did not happen by accident. Satan set a trap for us. He goes around like a roaring lion seeing whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8) A person who chooses to live a selfish and ungodly lifestyle may boast that they are free and happy, but if the unseen world could be shown to us we’d see them like a puppet being controlled by Satan’s demons. Satan enslaves his people. He isn’t good or kind. Those who make self their god and fall under his power really do experience spiritual slavery. The book of Romans is clear about this. It’s a hard, dissatisfying life living in sin and under Satan’s power. Thankfully through Christ we are offered freedom and each must individually make our choice whether we wish to be freed or not.

If a person does not believe they are affected by demons, this is just not Biblical or true. They aren’t far removed from us. Thankfully neither is God or his loyal angels. Planet earth is a battlefield.

So the question isn’t ‘Am I being affected by demons’, but rather ‘To what extent am I being affected by demons?’ ‘Am I Doing Something Biblically unlawful that is letting them into my life more than they normally and legally would be?” “Am I coming under their power and joining their side, rather than being faithful and loyal to God?” We know from the scriptures that all of us are tempted daily by demons. And we know also that these temptations do not end until Jesus comes the second time, or at death if we die before his second coming. So any belief system that says God will completely remove all demonic contact from you in this life just is not Biblically accurate. God does allow some demonic contact, even if you are a converted Christian.

What this means is if your goal is to remove all demonic contact from your life – if this is what you consider to be “cured” of your demon problem, and what you’re trying to bring about, it’s not a Biblical goal. It’s not something that happens in this world according to scriptures and it’s not something we can ask God for. We can only ask and receive things which are God’s will, and it’s not his will right now to completely remove all demonic activity. This is because God always does things the lawful and right way. It’s the reason God had to send Jesus to die for our sins and couldn’t just forgive us without the divine sacrifice; he only does things the lawful and righteous way. He won’t do anything that is wrong or evil.

There is a spiritual battle to fight in this world and it’s God’s will for us to fight and win that battle. He has a process of removing Satan’s power. There are steps that this world is going through to be freed from Satan and sin forever. Jesus began these steps immediately after Adam and Eve’s sin; He wasn’t distant or apathetic. I’m writing an article about the whole process and what the steps are and why each step is needed, so I won’t go into these details in this article. Suffice it to say that Jesus is coming soon (though we don’t know exactly when) and all the steps will soon be completed and Satan will be judged and removed from his position as god of this world forever. Until that happens we have a Christian warfare to fight.

It’s important then to reframe your goal. What you’re really wanting is not to never hear from Satan again, but to be safe from demons, to make sure they aren’t passing the designated barriers depicted in the scriptures for converted Christians. There’s definitely a point where they can get a foothold and go too far and you find yourself on ground a Christian should never be on and harassed by them because you went too far in sin, and what you’re wanting is to make sure that doesn’t happen. You’re wondering “What line did I cross to bring this demonic activity into my life in such a way that it passes the normal designated boundaries?” “And how do I get Satan back over the boundary lines into his own designated place for good?”

You’ve probably heard dozens of theories and ideas. You’re confused and you don’t know which one to believe, so you may have done each thing people in your life told you to do, out of your desire to just be rid of these demons for good, and better to be safe than sorry. I went through this. I heard that having gifts or anything that someone who was into the occult gave you could allow demons into your home. I was vigilant about not letting this happen. Then I heard that having rock music albums and other secular things could let Satan in. I wasn’t listening to rock music, but the fact that items like this were said to let Satan in scared me and I went through all of my belongings and ended up throwing many things out, including drawings from when I was younger, pictures, and many of my art work and writings. The guidelines weren’t crystal clear about which items let Satan in and which didn’t and I figured it was better to be safe than sorry, and acting out of fear (and admittedly mental illness at the time) I threw out trashbags full of my belongings, much of it my creative work thru the years, in an attempt to finally be free of demons, which ended up being my mental illness and not actually demonic activity. I would not learn I had psychosis and get this cleared up, for many years. Then I realized I had another problem. I was living with a father who had secular music CDs and I couldn’t throw away all of his CDs. I began to wonder if I was stuck and couldn’t get rid of the demons because of something someone else was doing which I had no control over.

A very common belief is that someone in the occult can cast a spell on you and that this spell can cause demons to attach to you. Great. Now some stranger you maybe talked to for a few minutes online can send demons your way by doing a spell from thousands of miles away. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Well there is something you can do right? If you just pray long enough and hard enough and fast often and call for the elders of the church to pray and anoint you that will make the demon go away right? But the problem with this line of thinking is that the person can just cast another spell on you and send more demons your way. What if they’re as vigilant as you are? What if they do spells daily to send demons to harass you and never give up. Does this mean you can never be free of demons? Are you stuck with never-ending demon harassment because of someone else’s choices and actions?

You’ll go mad with all the theories out there. Because with demonic and occult stuff, there is no way to tell how things work except by the Word of God. We don’t get behind the scenes views of Satan’s activity like our guardian angels do. We can’t study the spiritual world like we might study biochemistry or physics. The laws of how the spiritual world works are found only in the Word of God. Think of it like doing blind physics. The spiritual laws are very real and we can align ourselves with them – we can be forgiven by Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit and free of demon possession and unlawful demonic activity – but we can’t know this by looking at the effects of the laws the way we can look at the laws of gravity working in our world by watching things fall, airplanes fly when lift is created, and things like that. Because we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7) We see through a glass darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12). And even during the times when we can see spiritual manifestations much of the time it is Satan lying. He is a master deceiver who uses his spiritual power to do things like convince people reincarnation is real because they see their dead relative in vision who tells them this is the case. Or convince them Buddhism is real because they see a vision of an ascended master. Satan has created thousands of false religions through giving people lying spiritual manifestations. He muddies the waters and interferes with any spiritual experiment we may try to do. This is why you can’t study the spiritual world like we do the physical world. It’s just not safe to trust what we’ve seen when it comes to supernatural activity. But we can know the laws of the spiritual world – how to be right with God and free of spirits – and then trust God that his Word is true. The Word of God alone is our light.

So no matter what we have heard or how many times we’ve heard it, let’s start from scratch and go to the Word of God and see what actually is Biblical.

There are some very informative and key texts in the Old Testament that show the laws and dynamics of how the spiritual world works. They take us behind the scenes to the throne room of God.

Miacaiah a prophet of the Lord saw a vision and described it:

“I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitude of heaven standing on his right and on his left.

And the Lord said “Who will entice Ahab king of Israel into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there? One suggested this and another that.

Finally a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said “I will entice him”. By what means? The Lord asked.

“I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets. he said. “You will succeed in enticing him, said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of those prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”

2 Chronicles 18:18-22

At first it seems like the Lord arbitrarily sent a deceiving spirit to them just to trouble them and you might think he is evil if you don’t study this out, so I need you to turn with me to another passage that will explain how deceiving spirits gain a foothold on a person. This next text will fill in some key details that will lead to a fuller picture.

“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works –

Notice now how Satan works –

He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that they will all be condemned who have not believed the truth, but have delighted in wickedness.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

These two passages explain one another. What at first appears to be an arbitrary, cruel decree on God’s part is revealed to be a choice the person makes. A person can only fall prey to a delusion of Satan if they refuse to love truth and choose to delight in wickedness, then God gives them over to the delusion and ratifies their choice by giving them over to Satan, the god they have chosen. Satan thus gains control over a person. Satan unlike God is not honest but deceptive. This is his immoral manner of working.

Notice that the person does not accidentally come under Satan’s power. The choice must be a deliberate one in order for God to give the person over to the delusion and the power of Satan.

God is the highest source of authority. He’s Sovereign over the Universe. What Satan is doing is warring with God – Satan is not under God as a subject of God in these passages. He’s an enemy. But even an enemy is under God in the sense that all things must be approved by the highest authority before they can be done.

But notice the spiritual law at work here. Satan when he makes his request is really warring against God and getting permission to make his move on the chess board. This isn’t permission in the sense that God approves of what Satan is doing; Satan has free will. He has the legal right to war against God and make his moves. He is as much a free agent as we are. The war is being conducted under the supervision of God because He’s Sovereign, but God has no power to stop Satan’s rebellion as God himself believes in and upholds free will as a staple belief in his government.

It’s a chess board with God acting as an overseer of the moves, making sure everything that is done is legal according to the rules of warfare.

God will not allow someone to be deceived who loves the truth. The person must side with truth and with God in order to be under his protection. Satan can only gain his subjects legally by them choosing to align themselves with him through loving evil and cleaving to it. Satan can’t overpower or force someone onto his side.

We see this dynamic again on earth, no longer behind the scenes but in frontal view, when Jesus casts demons out of two demon-possessed men. The demons that left the men ask Jesus if they can have permission to possess a herd of swine. This is the same scenario that we see in the vision of Michaiah in heaven. Since Jesus is on earth now, the demons make their request to make their move on the chess board to Jesus on earth. He is the ultimate authority and they can’t make a move on the board without Him officiating and giving permission.

Jesus grants them permission, because like us they have free will and that free will is respected and they are allowed to do acts of destruction just as we as free agents are allowed to do acts of rebellion and destruction, and the demons plummet the swine off of a cliff. Their goal is to cause the people to hate and distrust God, and to focus on material wealth which was found in the swine, rather than in the deliverance of the demon-possessed men. Satan always appeals to our flesh, the fallen desires within us.

The people react badly and instead of being grateful for the deliverance of the demon-possessed men, they lament the money that was lost by the swine being killed. The people choose to side with Satan and they made Jesus leave.

But the testimony of the two demoniacs over time wins that whole region to Christ. The people choose to delight in truth and side with God and Satan loses them.

Luke 8:27-39

Let’s look at a passage in the time of David. David was not supposed to take a census of the people. He was directly instructed by God not to do so and it was forbidden of him. This is because David was supposed to trust in God for his victories and have faith, not trust in the strength of his army and look away from the Lord for deliverance and become proud and self-reliant.

Israel was in rebellion at the time against God and truth, and God was justly angry with them.

“The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he stirred up David against them saying “go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

2 Samuel 24:1

God’s anger burned against David and Israel because of their rebellion. Again it was their choice which put them in this position where God had to give them over to Satan and judgment in order for the rules of the warefare to be in effect.

David took a census and God punished him and all of Israel by offering David three choices of judgment: 3 years of famine, 3 months of fleeing from enemies, or 3 days of plague. David chose the plague and 70,000 people were killed by a destroying angel who carried out the Lord’s judgment orders.

2 Chronicles, describing the same incident words it this way:

“Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.”

2 Chronicles 21:1

So did God make David number Israel, or did Satan? Satan tempted David, and because David’s heart wasn’t in the right place (God’s anger burned against David and Israel, showing they weren’t right with Him at the time this happened) David accepted the delusion, and God gave him over to it. God then used the event to bring judgment on Israel, which they really needed, to punish those who had given themselves over to unfaithfulness with death, and to wake the others up to the fact their hearts weren’t right with him, and to repent of their sins.

What was David’s response to the judgment? When he saw the destroying angel going through Israel and slaying people he exclaimed “I have sinned!” He then asked for God’s judgment to fall on him and his family and off the “sheep” of Israel. The people themselves were far from innocent, but David’s words show he acknowledged his responsibility over them as their leader.

You can see that this judgment resulted in repentence. Prior to the judgment, David was proudly and unrepentantly ordering a census of the people.

Paul in the New Testament talks about the concept of “handing someone over to Satan (1 Cornthians 5:5) in order that they may be converted and saved. In other passages it’s explained what this means. In 2 Thess. 3:14-15 it’s described as cutting an unrepentant person in the church off from fellowship with the church, in order that they might be “ashamed”, come to their senses and be reconverted. Jesus first introduces this teaching in Matthew 18:16-17.

Jesus as God does this same kind of thing that Paul in his authority as apostle was directed to do by God. Give people over to what they choose that they may see their wrong, come to their senses, and repent.

There’s also a passage in Exodus 9:12 that says “God hardened Pharoah’s heart.”

Then Exodus 7:13 says “Still, Pharoah’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.”Which was it that hardened Pharaoh’s heart, Pharaoh or God?

Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

It’s the same dynamic described in the vision of Micaiah in 2 Chronicles. It’s described as God doing these things, or Satan doing those things, but then you look closer and you see that God merely ordered the move on the chess board to be made. He allowed for it. God is the acting overseer of the board to make sure no one cheats and everything is conducted legally, he’s the referee to keep the game within its own rules, but people are choosing whether they will side with God or with Satan.

But it’s not just people who are in rebellion to God who can be harassed by demons. There’s a difference between being given over to the power of Satan due to loving wickedness and forsaking God’s moral law, and what happened to Job. Let’s read on. Turn with me to Job 1:2-13

The story of Job answers the question “Can a converted Christian be demon-harassed” with a clear “yes.”

“One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.

The Lord said to Satan “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it,”

Then the Lord said to Satan “Have you considered my servant Job. There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

“Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied.

“Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the works of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.

But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

Job 1:2-13

The devil proceeds to kill Job’s children, his servants, and his flocks. When Job is still faithful to God despite his grief and loss Satan then asks for permission to afflict Job’s body with illness.

God grants Satan’s request and Satan personally afflicts Job with painful sores. “The Lord said to Satan, Very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life.” Job 2:6 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.” Job 2:7 This was a physical illness that is caused by demonic oppression. Even then Job did not turn from God but proved loyal.

Job was a righteous man – in good standing with God! It wasn’t because he broke some rule that he was oppressed. He didn’t bring it on himself. It happened because his faith needed to be tried and tested and proved true, and Satan’s accusations needed to be proved false in the sight of the universe.

So here we can see that there are three, possibly four reasons or root causes that cause demonic oppression to occur :

1. You’ve sinned and loved something immoral rather than loved the truth and you refuse to part from the evil thing and embrace the truth. (this includes occult activity as it’s a violation of the first commandment)

2. You’re a righteous person (through Christ) who is being tested as Job was, or even a non-righteous person who is given a trial as we are all given in life, that if passed by choosing Christ and turning from sin will result in revealing to the universe that you’re on God’s side and will result in being numbered with those who go to heaven.

3. (Number three we don’t know for sure; I will go into more detail below) You need a thorn in your flesh to keep you humble and reliant on God and not self, as Paul did.

Let’s look at root cause number 3.

The Apostle Paul, also a righteous man in good standing with God, was afflicted with what he called a “messenger of Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7 in his flesh. It was a physical problem of some kind that appears to be caused by a demon. I use the word ‘appeared’ because we don’t know for sure that it was caused by a demon, but the wording ” a messenger from Satan” certainly makes it appear to be demon-oppression. ‘Angel’ in the greek actually means ‘messenger’, so a ‘messenger of Satan’ certainly seems like it’s talking about an evil angel. And we do know for sure that Job was afflicted by a demon. What we do know for sure about Paul’s thorn is that Satan was somehow involved. Perhaps Paul is merely referencing that all illnesses and “thorns” originated with Satan – I’m not sure. It was given him to keep him from becoming conceited from the amazing visions he had received. Pride is the natural tendency of the human heart and he was especially vulnerable since he had had such impressive visions, so God gave him help to stay humble and close to God. And God used Satan to bring it about. God can bring good out of bad and overcome evil with good.

Paul prayed and asked God to take away this thorn in his flesh but God said no. “My grace is sufficient for you.” Which caused Paul to boast in his weaknesses that the power of God may rest on him, showing those of us today who find ourselves with sicknesses and weaknesses the right attitude to have when God says “no’ to our request to be healed. Paul couldn’t pray away this messenger of Satan, neither could Job. If they had called for the elders and been anointed with oil, they still would not have been healed and the demonic oppression would not have been lifted, because God was using it for a purpose. A needed, necessary, important purpose.

Job isn’t the only person tested. The Bible actually tells us that all of God’s children are tested in this life and must rely on Christ’s strength to pass the test and go to heaven. Adam’s first test of the Tree of Knowledge of  Good and Evil he failed. The test was necessary for mankind to choose their side – whether God’s or satan’s – and so when Jesus died for us on the Cross we still had free will and still needed to choose whose side we are on. Thus the situation where we are tempted through life in this world came about. I can’t go into all the details of this subject here but I’ve written another article about why we need to be tested and what it accomplishes; why God can’t just take us all to heaven the moment we are converted. Suffice it to say that we are all being tempted like Job – every Christian – and so we will have similar situations to his, probably even facing physical illness as a way to test and grow our faith. In some cases God may allow Satan to afflict us directly with illness and it may not stem from natural causes.

This shows us that physical affliction is something demons can oppress us with. But if God is allowing it for one of his purposes, then we won’t be able to pray it away or get well. So if your goal is to pray away a demon that God is allowing to afflict you to grow your faith, you won’t be able to pray it away. What we all need to pray instead is “Lord accomplish your will through this affliction”

In Luke 13:11 We see a woman who had a spirit of infirmity. The NIV says she had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. And the original greek says she had a spirit of infirmity. Her infirmity manifested as being bent over and unable to straighten. Jesus commanded the sickness to leave her and she was instantly healed. The Pharisees were angry he healed her on the Sabbath.

Jesus responded: “Should not this woman whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” vs 16

Notice the language again. It could be that there was a demon spirit oppressing this woman with a physical ailment (hunched back), but we don’t know for sure. It could be that Jesus was referencing that Satan is the originator of all disease.

If it was demon-oppression, we aren’t told whether she had sinned and given the demon power over her, or whether God had allowed the demon to oppress her like the case of Job with his boils.

In the case of this woman God chose to heal her. It was God’s will for her to be healed. If a demon is doing this to us and it’s God’s will for us to be healed, we can fast and pray, have the elders anoint us with oil, and ask God to heal us, and he will do it.

But if it’s not his will for us to be healed then like Job we can have a demon afflicting us and still know we are right with God. Being afflicted by a demon with physical illness (and if physical illness is possible by demon oppression then since the brain is a physical organ we know mental illness would also be possible by demon oppression. If the devil inflicts the brain mental symptoms will result), is not always an indicator that someone is not right with God or doing something wrong.

Now let’s look at another facet of this. Let’s say your wiccan sister is doing spells in her room. You’re naturally scared you might come in contact with these demon spirits since you live in such close proximity to her. The question to be asked here is ‘Is it Biblical that demons can interact with converted Christians by sight, sound, and movement? Could your wiccan sister living in the same house as you expose you to demons from the spells and rituals she is doing? Are you safe from her choices or in danger because of them?’ We’ve determined from my previous article that a converted Christian cannot become demon possessed as long as they are surrendered to Christ and not living a lifestyle of sin but are progressing heavenward in their walk with God. But demon oppression does work differently.

Let’s look at the story of Paul in the book of Acts casting out a demon from a fortune teller (please note that she could not really tell the future as we know from the Word of God that God alone knows the future and it’s a divine trait. But she pretended to, aided by deceiving spirits, whom the Word of God tells us plainly possessed her). She followed him for many days, possessed and mocking him and the gospel. Note that this went on for many days. Acts 16:17-18

Finally Paul commanded the demon to leave her and it left! She stopped harassing him when this happened and she stopped making money for the people who owned her (she was a slave). They reported Paul to the authorities who beat him severely as punishment. While Paul had power over the demon thru Christ, the rulers of the world who worshiped Satan the God of this world still had power to beat him. The enmity of the world to Christianity is very real. God allowed Paul to suffer for Christ’s and the gospel’s sake while making it very clear that Christ has power over demons and all kingdoms as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This story brings out some important points. Notice that yes the demon was in the presence of Paul via the woman,but notice who had the power – God did. God had invested his church with power to cast out spirits, to heal the sick, and to preach the gospel. (Matthew 10:8) This power is no less the church’s today than it was then. Because of Christ, even if demonic activity is going on around us because of pagans and those who practice witchcraft, we are safe. The spirit that is with us is greater than the spirit that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

This story does not encourage a spirit of fear and worrying over every little book our atheist brother may have in his room who lives with us. Instead it encourages faith in Christ. God is able to protect us and has equipped his church with the help it needs to stay protected as we fulfill the gospel commission to the world.

So where is the line? It’s not with seeing demonic activity around us. We live in a spiritual world and we know people who are involved in paganism and false religions. Yes they may bring demonic activity into their sphere and we may witness it, it may even harass us for many days, but this doesn’t mean we’ve crossed any lines ourselves. Daniel was a Christian statesman in pagan Babylon. The Babylonian King had magicians and sorcerers and they regularly consulted their false gods for wisdom and communications. Daniel was protected and served the true God.

Moses had the same experience in Egypt. At the time that God was sending the true plagues to free his people and testify to the whole world that He was the true God and call out people from pagan worship to worship the Christ who was to come (represented by the lamb that was slain in the daily temple sacrifices), Pharoah’s magicians performed many counterfeit signs in the presence of Moses and Aaron through their false gods. So Moses was right there watching these spiritual manifestations transpire. And God kept him safe. Moses did not become demon possessed by the experience. Now I don’t think it’s a good idea to be present there if your wiccan sister is doing a ritual. If you can get away, get away from it. Do your part to get away from it. But if it’s not something you can get away from as in the case of Moses, then you do have assurance that God will protect you. If your pagan sister is living in the same house as you and doing spells and you can’t get away, you can know God will protect you. Even if you see or hear demonic activity, the demons won’t possess you.

Where is the line that we’re told as Christians not to cross? There may be more than one (this is an on-going study I’m doing) but I’ll share with you what I’ve found so far: We are forbidden to engage in any occult or pagan activity ourselves. If we do this we’re told it’s worship of another god and breaks the first commandment. (Deuteronomy 18:9-13). We are not to consult the dead, talk to spirits of the dead, do the pagan practices or rituals of false religions.

Now this is a line that unfortunately many Christians have actually crossed and there is actually danger here. The good news is that this is something we can do something about. We can repent and turn from this. And God will forgive us and free us from any demons who may have been possessing us due to occult involvement. In America it’s very popular that when a loved one dies, vulnerable people of all faiths, including Christians, will see mediums and spiritualists to communicate with the deceased loved one. Sometimes they even talk to the deceased loved one out loud or watch for communications from the loved one through signs. This is spiritualism and forbidden in the scriptures. This definitely can result in the same condition as the pagan fortune teller in Acts who the Bible shows us was possessed.

God tells us “When someone tells you to consult spiritists and mediums…should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” Isaiah 8:19

In Leviticus 20:6-7 God says he will turn his face away from those who consult spirits and mediums. What he’s saying here is that turning to them grieves the Spirit of God away from you. The opposite of what you want to do as a Christian!

God considers it spiritual adultery – spiritual unfaithfulness to him – to go to false gods rather than directly to Him. He’s personally hurt if we do this. He wants us to seek him instead. He’s pledged to care for us at every stage in life and through every experience we face, telling us he will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). He’s told us in the book of Proverbs that true wisdom and guidance is found in His Word.

Leviticus 19:31 Tells us that if we consult them we will be defiled by them. Here we see why it’s a sin, why it’s wrong. It degrades human beings. It also deprives God of his right to our hearts and our worship. (first Commandment). People made in the image of God become like the idols they worship. Psalm 135:18

Another thing people of all faiths often do, including Christians, is read horoscopes. Do you know what a horoscope is? It claims the future can be told through the alignment of the stars. The creation can predict the future. This is worship of the creation and not the Creator, attributing a divine trait (that of knowing the future, which God alone can do) to mere objects in nature which can only exist because of the Creator’s power. (Romans 1:25) This is an occult practice and Satan can get control of a person this way.

Romans 1:23-28 shows what happens to those who worship the creation rather than the Creator. They become depraved. This is the same principle as in Psalm 135:18 – that we become like the gods we worship. God is the only just and right God. The only holy God. All other gods sin and break his law. This is the key reason God does not want us worshiping false gods. It’s out of his love for us. Because we become like the gods we worship, human beings can only be good, holy, pure. righteous, loving, and at peace if they worship the true God.

The Bible shows us that the worship of false deities – including the stars – is worship of demons. When a person worships any other god other than our Creator, they unknowingly worship demons.

“They sacrificed to demons who were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.” Deuteronomy 32:17

What gods were they sacrificing their children to that the Word of God calls demons? Baal, Molech. The gods of the Philistines and the Hittites and the surrounding heathen nations. These gods were really demons in disguise.

“They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.” Psalms 106:37

“They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons, after whom they have played the harlot.”

Leviticus 17:7

Here it is again. The gods they offered sacrifices to were demons. Paul reiterates this truth in the New Testament too in 1 Corinthians 10:20.

Jesus prayed “I pray not that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.” John 17:15

Another thing deliverance ministries often do, particularly in the Charismatic movement is talk and communicate with the demons. This should never be done! It’s practicing spiritualism. We are forbidden in the scriptures from holding conversations with demons. You may wonder how Jesus could do it when he spoke to the demons that fled into the pigs. Jesus is God. He’s the creator of the fallen angels and he’s basically acting as a judge and overseer of the chess board as explained earlier. He’s not practicing witchcraft by talking to them anymore than he would be practicing sorcery by talking to demons when they appear on judgment day before his throne. But for man to communicate with demons is sorcery and it’s forbidden.

Another line that is often crossed by Christians unknowingly is occult practices in natural medicine. Unfortunately Satan has been combining healthy and good things like herbs with pagan worship practices like witchcraft for thousands of years. And it can often be hard to know what’s safe and what isn’t. Some things to watch out for are DNRS because it uses neurolingistic programming which is similar to hypnotism, muscle testing, because it channels universal divine energy (pantheism) that is believed to possess your body to determine whether a supplement or treatment is right for you and will help you. It takes more than human wisdom to avoid all the devils deceptions, especially in natural medicine as they are so prevalent. We need God or this can’t be done. It’s important to maintain an attitude of humility and dependence on God, or a person will be overcome. Satan is more intelligent than us and in these last days he has so many lies and temptations that are very subtle that on our own we can’t avoid these land mines.

Satan is pure evil to give a person a mental or physical illness through inciting and tempting their family member to abuse them, and then when the person in adulthood starts searching for psychological and physical healing Satan has interwoven spiritualistic practices into natural healing that he entraps them with.

It’s common for people who have suffered abuse to be offered meditation or mindfulness as a solution. In fact in psychology mindfulness is the standard treatment protocol these days. I even had a Christian therapist  want to do mindfulness exercises with me, and this is not uncommon. Both of these practices come from Buddhism and are spiritualism. Satan can get control over someone who does them. To meditate means to think and contemplate. This is what we should be doing as we read the scriptures according to the Bible. Clearing one’s mind and their logical, higher thoughts, and listening for the inner self, a universal divine energy that exists in all things, is not meditating, but channeling. It’s a religion known as pantheism that teaches all things are divine and there is a divine energy that connects them. The word meditation is used because it’s deceptive and makes the practice sound safe.

I feel for people who are thrice abused – first by their abusive parents, then by psychologists who tempt them with mindfulness and meditation, and then by the demon spirits that pretend to be their higher self and lead them astray and possibly possess them, never telling them the truth about their need for a Savior and that healing from sin is found in Christ alone, but deceive them with smooth-sounding and fatal lies.

No matter our background, God will help us, and we have a positive duty to seek His help, to search for and embrace only what is true, and to be wise and discerning and reject lies. We are adjourned to “Let no man take your crown”. This includes therapists, doctors, pastors, and even our own selves as our flesh is attracted to lies and smooth sayings. We can trust God’s Word alone, and the counsel of those who counsel us according to His divine Word and do not go against its teachings.

We are told to “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 and are shown Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness to illustrate this truth. We can have victory over Satan and his temptations, and he will flee. But just as he came back into Jesus’ life later with more temptations, so he is permitted to tempt us again and have future involvement in our lives. There is no way to completely ban him from contact with us as long as we’re living in this world.

We are told to “put on the full armor of God” and to “demolish arguments and cast down every high thing that exalts itself above the knowledge of God.” and even to take captive every thought through the divine power of God working through the “weapons of our warfare” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5), the promises of God found in the scriptures; the Words which are Spirit and life. The Spirit works through the power of God’s word to impart to us God’s divine aid and give us the victory. Indeed, we are not told to pray away demonic activity completely, but to fight it.

For a long time the armor of God did not make sense to me as a Christian because it seemed too focused on me and my abilities. How could I have swordmanship good enough to fight off Satan? Not only did this not make sense, but it seemed very self-reliant, works-based and out of alignment with faith. Thinking about honing my swordmanship, or practicing increasing my faith (my shield) to protect myself put the focus on me and made me feel just like people in the world feel when they depend on themselves to win an argument or a swordfight. Not very spiritual, not like the childlike trust Jesus asks us to have. Yet I could not deny that we are instructed to fight manfully the battles of the Lord, it’s right there in the Word of God.

This confusion was resolved when I studied how the Spirit and the Word work together. When I understood that God’s Word is really God himself working on our behalf through his Spirit. It’s not a tool; it’s a living Person fighting for us. The weapons of our warfare is really one weapon – the Holy Spirit Himself. This is how they have divine power. Us wielding the word of God on our own would not have divine power; indeed even Satan quotes scripture but he lacks God’s power. The power is God Himself making his promises come to fruition. Jesus said his “words are spirit and they are life”. By the Word of God the world was formed (Hebrews 11:3). These are not empty dead words. Since it’s God Himself who gave us his word – his promises – when we present them to Him He acts on our behalf according to His promises. So when Satan lies to us and tempts us, and we respond by reciting a Bible verse to fortify us to walk in the truth rather than give in to the temptation, it’s not that we’re using the sword; it’s that Christ’s Spirit is empowering us and keeping us in the truth. The Spirit works through the Word to do this, because Christ is the Word and the role of the Holy Spirit is to magnify Christ (John 16:14). It is their relationship dynamic in the Godhead. Christ magnifies God and the Spirit magnifies Christ.

All the parts of the armor are glued to us and held together by the one who is our keeper, our defender, and our savior. It’s living armor, being hemmed in and protected by the Holy Spirit Himself working through the Word of God. Our job then is to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 13:14 and then we will have strength to resist the strong desires of the flesh. To daily choose Christ and daily spend time in prayer and Bible study with him.

To Summarize:

Demons can oppress both converted Christians and unconverted Christians. So the fact you’re experiencing harassment doesn’t mean you aren’t right with God. Go to God in prayer, repent of any sins you need to repent of, turn away from them in His strength, then call for the elders of the church to anoint you and pray over you. You may want to fast also as Jesus said there is a certain kind of demon that only comes out after fasting and prayer combined. (Matthew 17:21). This may apply to demon oppression as well as demon possession, I’m not sure, and it seems like a good idea to implement some fasting and prayer if you have a particularly difficult demonic situation on your hands. Put faith in Christ and believe his promises to you that he will protect you from demonic activity and remove any demons that may have crossed a boundary line due to sin on your part.

If the demonic activity persists it’s either demons that God is allowing to harass or afflict you for some purpose (remember Job), in which case it’s no longer your job to stress or worry; it’s something God will take care of. Or you may have a mental illness, as many mental illness symptoms can mirror demonic activity, particularly hearing voices, seeing hallucinations and a symptom called disociation where you are so disconnected from yourself that your brain no longer recognizes your thoughts as your own, and it feels like another entity is thinking the thoughts and projecting them into your brain. There is a common symptom of psychosis called thought insertion, where the person in psychosis believes someone is inserting thoughts into their mind. Often they believe it is a family member doing it, but another common belief is that a demon is inserting the thoughts. I encourage you to google ‘thought insertion, psychosis’ for a more thorough explanation of this common psychosis symptom.

I’m sure Satan could mimick mental illness so you can never really know if it’s mental illness or demonic activity except by fasting and praying, turning from sin and calling the elders. If that doesn’t help, but medication and seeing doctors for a mental illness does help and the manifestations or voices go away or reduce, then you probably have a mental illness on your hands and not demonic activity.

I think it’s possible for a person to be lost and unconverted and also be demon possessed or harassed, and be mentally ill on top of their spiritual problems, in which case it takes real wisdom to address the person’s condition. No matter which sickness a person suffers from, or what combination of sicknesses, demonic harassment or even possession, physical illness, or mental illness, God has given his church authority to heal it. This may happen instantaneously and miraculously, or God may choose to heal the person is a more natural way with doctors, medications, and supplements. The church can support and aid the person in their recovery, regardless of whether it’s demons or mental health. We have the health ministry and the gospel ministry as our mandate from God, to move forward together.

There are added benefits to God not doing instantaneous healings. It causes us to have to cooperate to get well, to study our bodies and how to keep them in health, and our character is refined by this process as we learn to give up unhealthy lifestyle practices, which is far from easy, but necessary and essential to the Christian. Keeping our bodies in health is an act of worship to God. It’s not something we can ignore or live without doing. (Romans 12:1) We are fearfully and wonderfully made and in studying our body’s design we view the handiwork of God. This is something we need to see; we need this living object lesson of the Creator’s power and wisdom.

Another thing that natural healings do is they guard us against false miracles. If we’re grounded in natural healing we won’t as susceptible to believing and being influences by the counterfeit miracles that Satan performs. God can protect us from the spurious knowledge of Satan by keeping us focused on natural healings.

I remember a while back when I was seeing doctors and pursuing health treatments and it was a long difficult road to get better. A Facebook pastor friend of mine had just been healed by Benny Hinn, a popular charismatic preacher. People were being slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues and all of that. When Benny Hinn put his hands on my pastor friend, my friend’s high blood pressure and pain around his chest went away. He had been having debilitating chest pain.

My friend tried to get me to also see Benny Hinn and he couldn’t understand why I’d go such a long and difficult road to regain my health with seeing doctors and doing health treatments, some of which take 2-3 years to complete. But I received benefits from my longer more natural healing that he did not experience with an instantaneous healing (please note that I don’t believe his healing from from God; I think it was from the enemy masquerading as God.) I had many times where I could say like Jacob “I have seen the Lord face-to-face and my life is preserved.” Genesis 32:30 I had precious experiences of learning to trust God more fully. I learned about health and the human body and can share and teach this information to others. I know how to heal and also how to preserve health, which is vital to prevent relapse of symptoms. I’m about to begin health coach training. My pastor friend did not believe that keeping our bodies in a state of health is a part of worship. He ate pizza and fast food and lived an unhealthy lifestyle.

So you can see the fruits of a true healing vs. a false one. In most cases if people are healed instantaneously they will continue their unhealthy practices and a healing would amount to God being an enabler of their destructive lifestyles. Prolonged natural healings gaurd against this happening.

If you’ve parted with sin, been prayed over and fasted, put on the whole armor of God – Christ himself – and remained in the Word, then you’ve done what is asked of you from the scriptures. Resist the temptation to go to cultural beliefs superstition or human opinion to find out things that the Word of God has not told us about the spiritual realm. You’ll never know if these things are true or not and it will just cause confusion and lead to more chaos. It isn’t acting in faith to do that. God does leave gaps in our knowledge but he gives us all the information that we do need to know.

You can rest assured that Jesus will fight for you; he will do his part. He is our keeper; we don’t keep ourselves. He will protect you from demons.